Emily St. John Mandel's new novel 'Exit Party' builds on favorite themes in her 'Mandelverse'

After seven novels that span centuries, continents and even planets, Emily St. John Mandel has not only created a substantial body of work, but a universe unto herself — what admirers like to call the Mandelverse.“It means that the novels, although they can be read entirely alone and independently, have this web of connections between them,” the author said during a recent interview at a cafe on Manhattan's Upper East Side. “I think it’s fair to say that I have certain interests and I’ll build on that and build on that and build on that over time.”Artists have been known to say that a given work is the culmination of what preceded it, and Mandel's latest, “Exit Party,” gathers characters and themes that readers of “Station Eleven,” “Sea of Tranquility” and other novels will recognize. Her narrative weaves together two genres she has long been known for, crime fiction and science fiction, and continues Mandel's explorations of chaos, identity, impermanence and transcendence.Like “Statio